GW2 and TF2 are both F2P and they don't restrict your gameplay at all. World of Warcraft's starter edition is free as well, and they don't limit how many Battlegrounds or Dungeons you can do.

Guild Wars 2 isn't free to play, TF2 is an entirely different animal, and WoW's free trail is infinitely more limiting than SWTOR.

GW2 is buy to play and has been developed around that business model from the start. If BW wanted to move in that direction, they could, but they decided to remove the initial barrier for entry, that's their decision. Comparing what GW2 and SWTOR deliver isn't a good move since the two use different business models.

TF2...I don't see how you can draw any comparison here beyond the fact that neither cost any money to play. The games are so vastly different it's like trying to compare a squirrel to a whale simply because they're both mammals. Doesn't really work.

As for WoW's free trail...it limits you to level 20. SWTOR delivers the full leveling experience (content-wise) and access to far more of the game than WoW's trial does.

I'm not defending BW's model here, I hate it. But these aren't really good comparisons if you're trying to highlight how poor it is.

They should have taken the Gw2 route in terms of the f2p model in my opinion.

Well, gw2 is b2p. (buy to play)
Which is also a very awesome model.

But what I think is most impressive about gw2's model is that they create a player based second currency exchange. So you can trade in game (gold) for secondary currency (gems) with other players and the exchange rate is set by demand. Absolutely fantastic. I wish swtor would adopt this as it would excuse everything else in the game as you would would have the ability to gain secondary currency in game. If you have that you can pretty much charge for anything.

---------- Post added 2012-11-19 at 02:20 AM ----------

Originally Posted by MaximusRex

LOTRO, DDO, STO, CO, all restrict the number of characters you can make to less then then the paid sub offers. I don't know of any free MMO that restricts XP earned.

Wait...seriously? Guess I'll be making more free accounts then, instead of giving BW money to buy more slots and all that.

I know, right?

It's like they don't want money or something. I am baffled.

I made a thread about how its crazy that they aren't selling like half the crap they should be but it didn't gain traction. Too many people upset about the action bars to realize the truly bizarre nature of this EET. (expensive extended trial)

Wait...seriously? Guess I'll be making more free accounts then, instead of giving BW money to buy more slots and all that.

There are far better and more engaging f2p games out there than SWTOR. The developers keep coming up with new ways to kill their game. I don't see the point in getting around character slot restrictions by making more accounts when you can't even do anything when you get one account to max level. At that point you are supposed to sub if you plan to do anything useful in the game. So making additional accounts to circumvent that is really pointless. The game is a waste of time and at the end of the day you might as well sub if you like the game so you aren't restricted in EVERYTHING you do while you level. If you don't like this then just let the game die, finally.

I'm still not sure why there are so many people crying about this. Let's be mature about it. If you don't like it, fine, nobody is forcing you to play it.

If you were a subscriber, nothing changed! You can still subscribe and now, in addition to all the stuff you got before, you get 500 CC each month to put towards whatever they decide to lock behind CC.

If you weren't a subscriber, you now have almost an infinite amount more access to the game than you did before. Before the "F2P" conversion, you couldn't do anything besides level to 15 and do the same FP over and over... let alone complain about F2P restrictions.

If you're the type of person that will never spend a cent on a F2P game ever no matter what, companies don't really care about you (at least not any more than giving the paying customers more people to play with). F2P isn't about giving the game away for free, with only a <cash shop or equivalent> filled with <your preferred types of items/unlocks>... it's about giving people options on how to play in hopes of increasing revenues. It lowers the barrier of entry to literally nothing. To expect anything more than that for free is a very naive/childlike way of looking at things.

I'm still not sure why there are so many people crying about this. Let's be mature about it. If you don't like it, fine, nobody is forcing you to play it.

If you were a subscriber, nothing changed! You can still subscribe and now, in addition to all the stuff you got before, you get 500 CC each month to put towards whatever they decide to lock behind CC.

If you weren't a subscriber, you now have almost an infinite amount more access to the game than you did before. Before the "F2P" conversion, you couldn't do anything besides level to 15 and do the same FP over and over... let alone complain about F2P restrictions.

If you're the type of person that will never spend a cent on a F2P game ever no matter what, companies don't really care about you (at least not any more than giving the paying customers more people to play with). F2P isn't about giving the game away for free, with only a <cash shop or equivalent> filled with <your preferred types of items/unlocks>... it's about giving people options on how to play in hopes of increasing revenues. It lowers the barrier of entry to literally nothing. To expect anything more than that for free is a very naive/childlike way of looking at things.

I dotn think you understand.....the problem isnt the f2p stuff ...the character limit is fine, with cash shop you put xp booster for people to go faster, not an unlock to have a normal xp gain (xp should not have been reduced, we should just be able to buy booster to enhance the experience), and also the huge problem of putting BASIC FUNCTIONALITY ELEMENT A.K.A. additional action bar...behind a price....that is stupid FFS.

Dude, I logged into it, noticed that I can't even disable showing my helm without paying, and logged out. I don't think I will ever touch this game again.
Also I think they promised me at least 300 coins cuz I was a subscriber for like near half a year, I didn't get anything. Maybe I should "claimed" them on site or something, but whatever.

LOTRO, DDO, STO, CO, all restrict the number of characters you can make to less then then the paid sub offers. I don't know of any free MMO that restricts XP earned.

I played STO, yes, they limit the char to 2 slots, that and the no skill respec unless you pay Cryptic points was the worst thing they did. So in short EA took some of the worst from other games and created SWTOR...

There will come a whole lot more to the cartel market, they already let you purchase additional 4th and 5th ship container which wasn't possible before. You'll get additional characterslots very soon I supposed (latest when Cathar come to the game).

Originally Posted by VincentWolf

Dude, I logged into it, noticed that I can't even disable showing my helm without paying, and logged out. I don't think I will ever touch this game again.
Also I think they promised me at least 300 coins cuz I was a subscriber for like near half a year, I didn't get anything. Maybe I should "claimed" them on site or something, but whatever.

Don't equip a helmet if it's so important to you. There are actually nice looking helmets around to not need to hide them. Your coins were behind at least 1 active subscription when F2P hit, I guess your informations weren't up to date.

your opinion. People have different taste. I do like the game. I understand some player would not find it interesting, i think you should make room for the possibility that they are quite a few people enjoying the F2P SWTOR right now.

2 action bars are enough for f2p. It's stupid to limit basic UI functionality ... maybe we should pay for unlocking key binding as well ? But whatever. If that is what makes or breaks your game experience in TOR, it was not worth much to begin with.

What I am missing right now is reason to pay to unlock more functionality. If you don't want to raid or run rated warzones with premades, what other end game is there in TOR.

Hey just a quick question any other free to play players not able to post on the official forums for swtor? I have been trying to do so to give a peice of my mind to Bio about stuff but I am locked out. Any help will be great guys XD

Hey just a quick question any other free to play players not able to post on the official forums for swtor? I have been trying to do so to give a peice of my mind to Bio about stuff but I am locked out. Any help will be great guys XD

Unfortunately they did limit the posting to subscribers. I honestly don't want gold sellers or spammers able to just make an account and spam the forums like crazy!

I played STO, yes, they limit the char to 2 slots, that and the no skill respec unless you pay Cryptic points was the worst thing they did. So in short EA took some of the worst from other games and created SWTOR...

I used to play STO as well....and it is quite possible, although a bit boring and long winded, to be able to get EVERYTHING without spending a penny. Just after the 1st lockbox, I traded in Cryptic Points. Buying them at XXX and selling an hour or 2 later for XXX+2-3. Doing this for a week meant I was able to stash away 1000's of CP's to buy what I wanted from the C-Store. I had 8-9 character slots, half a dozen respec tokens, and MANY C-Store ships!

As you can't "earn" Cartel Points in anyway other than buying them, STO is not a good comparison (LOTRO falls under the same thing)

I was planning on playing it again.. I quit TOR a week after launch and went back to wow... But looking at the restrictions of F2P I'm not gonna bother. And I doubt many others will, seems pointless its not going to change the amount of players I doubt. I refuse to pay a sub for it, I don't think its good enough to pay monthly for like wow (My opinion, that's not fact) And I'm not paying both subs when I'm only on one at a time. A few restrictions is fair, and to be expected. but that is way over the top.